By DPA
Bangkok : The European Commission (EC) Thursday allocated another 18 million euros ($26 million) of its assistance programme to the country.
The new aid allocation from the administrative arm of the European Union (EU) comes in the wake of a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in Yangon last September that has prompted the US to slap new economic sanctions on Myanmar’s military leaders.
The EU maintains that its aid programme does not assist the government but attempts to address the country’s humanitarian crises.
“Recent events suggest that there is no immediate end in sight for the country’s hard-pressed population,” said Louis Michel, who heads the Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) in Myanmar.
“More than ever, humanitarian aid, delivered by organisations like the International Red Cross (ICRC) and NGOs is needed to save lives, reduce suffering and protect vulnerable people,” said Michel.
The main beneficiaries of Commission-supported relief programmes in Myanmar will be more than a million highly vulnerable rural people living in remote frontier areas, who have no access to basic social services in places such as the Sakhine, Shan, Mon and Kayin states, Sagaing and Thanintaryi divisions.
The other main target group is around 138,000 Myanmar refugees living in camps in Thailand.
The EU has been providing humanitarian aid to Myanmar since 1994. It has given more than 100 million euros to the country since 2000.